SCOTLAND HAD HIGHEST NUMBER OF KICKSTART JOBS FILLED
On the 8th of July 2020, Rishi Sunak announced the £2 billion ‘Kickstart Scheme’, which aimed to create more jobs for young people aged between 16 and 24 years old. Anyone who was in this age bracket, claiming Universal Credit and at risk of long-term unemployment could apply.
The government covered all the Kickstarter’s wages for up to 25 hours of work at the minimum wage for their age bracket at the time. Those aged between 16 & 18 were paid £4.55 per hour, 18 to 20-year-olds were paid £6.45 per hour and 21 to 24-year-olds: £8.20 per hour
It is important to note that if employers wished to, they also had the option to top up this payment for their Kickstart employee/s.
Since the Kickstart Scheme ended in March 2022, SmallBusinessPrices.co.uk, therefore, wanted to reflect on the scheme and analyse how well it went from a regional, national, sector-specific and age-related perspective.
SmallBusinessPrices.co.uk investigated the percentage of available Kickstart job roles that have been filled by UK region. Within the regional data, Scotland saw the highest number of jobs filled at 73.68%, followed by the West Midlands at 73.33%, then finally the East Midlands at 72.86%
The Animal Care sector filled the highest percentage of jobs, at 80.75%. This was followed by Creative and Media at 78.51% and finally Law and Legal at 78.46%. However, the Transport sector filled the least roles at just 51.11%.
The sector allocated the most jobs was Administration at 57,350, which was followed by the Retail and Sales sector at 34,970 jobs. The Emergency and Uniform services sector were assigned the least number of jobs, at just 520 and had only 0.22% of the total jobs made available on the scheme.
